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Supreme: The Story of the Year 2002 (SC TPB) 328 pages

Written by Alan Moore. Illustrated by Joe Bennett, Mark Pajarillo, J. Morrigan, and various; Rick Veitch (flashback sequences).
Colours: various. Letters: Todd Klein. Editor: Eric Stephenson.

Reprinting: Supreme #41-52a, 52b (1996-1997) - published by Image Comics (#41-42), Maximum Press (#43-49), Awesome Entertainment (#50-52b)

Additional notes: intro by Alan Moore; publisher Mark Thompson; chapter sketches by Alex Ross

Rating: * * * (out of 5)

Number of readings: 1

Published by Checker Book Publishing

By most accounts, Supreme was a blatant rip-off of Superman...except given an Image Comics spin: exaggerated muscles, snarly expressions, and lots of mindless fight scenes. When Alan Moore assumed the property he decided: why not make him more than a rip-off? Why not make him an affectionate homage to a bygone Superman mythos, the pre-Crisis Superman? As well, he takes the opportunity to have some fun with the very conventions of comic books.

It begins when an amnesiac Supreme encounters various dopplegangers of himself and learns reality has undergone frequent revisions in which different Supremes, with whole alternate histories, have come and gone -- all of which is a clear joke on the way new writers tend to re-interpret old characters, and on editorial overhauls such as DC Comics' Crisis on Infinite Earths. This latest Supreme learns his amnesia is caused by the fact that his backstory hasn't fully been established yet. Over the next few issues, his "memories" come back to him and we see flashbacks to his origin and various early adventures -- all written and drawn in styles meant to evoke older comics, including being on yellowing paper. While in the present, Supreme seeks to reconnect with friends and colleagues he has lost track of, battles some old foes, and resumes his career as Ethan Crane, mild mannered comic book artist (allowing Moore some further digs at the business itself). All of which, I'm assuming, means this is a completely re-imagined Supreme and you don't need to have read the previous 40 issues to follow much of it.

Although the stories seem largely self-contained (there are occasional multi-issue stories, like from #47-49) there's actually a bit of a story arc, with revelations in the final issues relating back to things portrayed in earlier issues, allowing this collection to seem like a genuine "graphic novel".

Supreme: The Story of the Year is a likeable undertaking, but it left me with mixed reactions.

I'm largely in sync with Moore's feelings here. Despite Alan Moore having been at the forefront of the dark n' gritty phase comics went through in the late 1980s/early 1990s, he seems to have some regrets about that era. Thus his Supreme is intended as a throwback to slightly kinder, gentler heroes, when stories were feuled by a whimsical imagination, rather than driven by fight scenes (though there are those). Being someone who grew up with the pre-Crisis Superman, and feeling much was lost when DC Comics pared down the mythos in the late 1980s, I'd often wondered about the legal possibilities of someone coming along and resurrecting the ideas DC discarded. After all, if a child discards a toy, it's O.K. if another child decides he'd like to play with it now that it's no longer in use. So the idea of doing an homage to the older Superman -- a Superman who started his career as Superboy (here Kid Supreme), has a super dog for a pet, a super-powered cousin (here sister), etc. -- isn't a bad idea. Moore is hardly alone in the field of modern comics writers whose work is steeped in nostalgia for past eras: writers like Mark Waid and Kurt Busiek and others have also been over this ground.

Moore comes up with some wild and wonderful ideas including Gorrl, the Living Galaxy, a kind of nod to Marvel Comics' Galactus in that he's a foe who's so supremely powerful you can't actually beat him. Moore's version of the Devil has 7 heads that represents the Seven Deadly Sins...though Moore leaves that for the reader to figure out on their own. In another story Supreme enters a dimension that is, essentially, humanity's shared sub- conscious. Ideas like those are pretty head trippy for a comic that purports to be nostalgic. And Moore's League of Infinity -- a take off on the Legion of Super-Heroes -- also has some intriguing aspects.

However, like with other things I've read by Moore, there can be a feeling at times that the intellectual concept driving the enterprise is more sure than the actual execution.

Peppered throughout the book are "flashback" stories meant to evoke earlier eras -- the stories simplistic and even goofily written, the art rudimentary. While most are meant to evoke old style comics, some are more self-reflective, like a story, supposedly circa 1949, where Supreme and his fellow heroes are given a demoralizing look into the 1950s -- but it's less a look at the real 1950s, than at coming trends in comics (allowing for segments evoking EC Comics horror stories and Mad Magazine parodies).

In the flashbacks, Moore teams with artist Rick Veitch (also part of the dark n' gritty phase, clearly feeling nostalgic) to present stories that are on a par with some old comics...but they aren't as good as the better old comics. While reading this collection, I read a few Superman and Superboy stories from the periods Moore is conjuring, just for comparative purposes. And I found the old Superman stories better than Moore's "retro" Supreme stories.

Moore tries so hard to evoke Superman that Supreme runs the danger of being caught in limbo -- he's not, and can never be, Superman, but he's so slavishly derivative of Superman, he has trouble emerging as his own character. In the flashback story "The Conundrum of the Cloud Castle" Moore even concocts a story that is almost identical to a real Superman story, "The Super-Key to Fort Superman" (though Moore might have read it as a kid and only copied it sub-consciously). But once Moore is borrowing, not just character and mythos, but actual plots, there's a feeling we're looking less at an homage, and more at a rip-off.

Surely the point of Supreme is to take the best of the old Superman ideas, and spin them off into new and fresh adventures? In his introduction, Moore asserts this isn't just a nostalgic comic, but a vision that's "viable for the next century". When Mark Gruenwald did his Squadron Supreme epic, it worked because it was a Justice League rip-off that told a story the JLA could never tell. And Marvel's Moon Knight (at least in the early 1980s) was a rip-off of DC's Batman, but with enough interesting twists and quirks that it was a fresh take on Batman. But too often here, all Moore does is just a version of the pre-Crisis Superman that isn't as well realized as the pre-Crisis Superman.

Even in the contemporary stories, Moore's love of nostalgia for a character that never was takes precedence over simply telling great stories. The plots are often fairely rudimentary, not bothering to grapple with any of the deeper questions that they raise. Moore also develops hints of a romance between Supreme's alter ego, Ethan Crane, and a lady comic book writer, but even here, the relationship seems to arise from convention (if Superman has his Lois Lane, Supreme must have his Diana Dane) rather than because Moore genuinely portrays a human connection between the two.

Perhaps because of Moore's age, his nostalgia is restricted to the Silver Age (only one of the flashbacks is meant as a homage to the 1970s Bronze Age, with artist Rick Veitch appropriating a style meant to evoke such early 1970s luminaries as Neal Adams, Mike Grell and Jim Starlin). As such, Moore doesn't appropriate ideas from that later period that, to me, were interesting. Supreme's version of Lex Luthor -- Darius Dax -- is a one-dimensional bad guy, but I liked the pre-Crisis Lex Luthor who had flickers of a conscience and who Superman, at times, held out hope might someday be his friend again. Granted, it may just have been one-time Superman scribe Elliot S! Maggin who played with that idea. But whatever its origin, it could've made for a more emotionally complex conflict. But that idea clearly holds no appeal for Moore.

And maybe what also is a stumbling block is that Moore occasionally seems to have his tongue in cheek, so that even when I try to take Moore's characters seriously...I find myself unsure if Moore is taking them seriously himself.

Things improve as these story progress. In fact, a nicely handled issues is #50, in which the modern sequence is mainly Ethan Crane having a business date with Diana Dane, where Moore does a nice job of handling the flirtatious sub- text as the characters skirt around speaking what's in their hearts. And the three part tale from #47-49 is also reasonably entertaining, and boasts one of the better flashbacks, teaming Supreme with Batman-clone, Prof. Night. And the climactic adventure is also decent enough. And that isn't to say other issues aren't O.K.

Art-wise, there's not too much to say. With a constantly shifting roster of artists, most working in a similar style, the art is competent, but nothing more. Much of it's drawn in a modern sort of way, with cartoony exaggerations and big muscles. That may be part of the point, to contrast with the "flashback" stories, but it also undermines Moore's attempt to re-model Supreme as an older style hero. Chris Sprouse, who only contributes one issue here, has a cleaner, more restrained style that I think better suits the tone Moore is going for. In the flashbacks, Rick Veitch does a decent job of evoking older comics in general, and occasionally specific artists, but like Moore's scripts, is rarely as good as those he's emulating (even with old timer Jim Mooney on inks).

Once again I've harped on the negative in a review. The thing is, I didn't dislike Supreme: The Story of the Year. I very much appreciated the intent. But I also didn't quite feel it became what it hoped to become. The nostalgic flashbacks, too often, were pale versions of earlier eras, and the modern stories aren't really classics in the making. At 328 pages meant to rebuild and re-establish Supreme for a new readership, I still didn't really feel by the end I had much of a feel for the characters and their world. They remain imitations. When Supreme teams up with a JLA-like Allies...well, you're a better man than me if you notice any personality traits to most of them. With all that being said, Moore's tenure on Supreme has produced a second TPB collection, Supreme: The Return, that I'm not averse to trying one of these days.

And maybe this'll work better for newer readers. After all, I have a bunch of older Superman comics in my collection (including reprint books like the Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told). Maybe this is more aimed at readers who can appreciate the homage aspect...without actually being able to compare it to the real stuff.

Apparently an earlier edition of this book suffered from some shoddy printing reproduction, but the edition I read was fine. The back cover bios were a bit curious: Supreme creator Rob Liefeld is credited with changing "everything as we know it" in comics. That seems a tad hyperbolic when most of the critical reviews I've seen of his work can be pretty dismissive. But maybe the effusiveness is just a joke. Alan Moore's brief introduction seems a tad...disjointed, too, as if maybe it was edited from a longer piece.

Cover price: $42.95 CDN./ $26.95 USA.

Supreme Power: Contact
   For my review at www.ugo.com, go here.

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